


Dogs like Seraphs

by autumn_spirit



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 05:34:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14635155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumn_spirit/pseuds/autumn_spirit
Summary: Clary and Jonathan are raised by their father, Valentine, in an isolated cottage in Idris. They are taught to hate all Downworlders and how to fight like Shadowhunters. Their father plans on using his children to outwit the Clave and take over the New York Institute someday soon. However, when one of Valentine's darkest secrets is suddenly revealed, Clary and Jonathan are forced to run away. Finding themselves in New York, the siblings must decide whether to betray their father or carry out his original plan on their own.





	Dogs like Seraphs

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Shadowhunters fic. I have not yet finished reading the books. I am basing this more on the TV show than the Mortal Instruments book series, but of course, there's no way getting around certain details from the book. Just keep that in mind. And thanks again to Mia_Zeklos for helping me edit this.

You may think that my childhood was nothing but darkness, that it was this window-less, door-less black hole, stained with violence and constant emotional and physical torture; blood and guilt everywhere, all the time.  
But, that's not exactly how it was for me.  
It's true that my brother and I were indeed isolated. Our father kept us inside this gray and white brick cottage in the snow-tipped pine forests of Idris, and hardly ever let us out unsupervised. Honestly, if I were to paint you a picture of the place that I had only ever known as home, it would probably resemble a scene right out of a Brothers Grimm fairy-tale. On the surface, my brother and I were like Hansel and Gretel, finding themselves lost in the woods, somehow on the doorstep of a witch's crumbling candy-house. But Jonathan and I didn't feel lost, and sometimes not even wanting. Despite our strict upbringing by the hands of our father and our mother's rather unexplained absence, we thought that we fit into that world because it was the only one that we were familiar with. Jonathan and I believed, for many years, that that empty and brutal life was just how things were supposed to be. Back then, what we were taught; it made sense.  
Even so, Jonathan and I were still children. We wanted to play outside, to feel free and wild. There weren't many opportunities for that, since most of our days were spent studying and training. Sometimes, our father would let us run out onto the huge and unkept lawn that bordered the cottage, but he would always be close by, watching.   
I do remember one time, though, when he locked himself in the library after dinner. He told us not to disturb him, under any circumstances. I remember our father had taken with him a particularly thick text-book with him, written in an unfamiliar language and with an odd symbol on the cover. When I asked what the symbol meant, he gave me this irritated look and said dismissively, “It's none of your concern. Go outside with your brother.”  
I recall feeling taken aback by Valentine's harshness to such a simple question. He gruffly told Jonathan and I not to go beyond the trees at the front of our yard. Then he quickly exited the dimly lit dining-room. Beside me, Jonathan didn't seem bothered at all and simply leaped to his feet, dashing towards the door. I slowly got up, put on my shoes and followed him out into the violet and humid evening.  
“What do you think that book was about?” I asked Jonathan as he bounded towards a particularly tall maple tree.  
He pressed his hand to the bark and used it as leverage as he swung his body around the thick trunk. “Don't know, don't care!” He announced, giggling. He seemed to be bouncing with adrenaline, suddenly.   
I followed slowly behind as he dashed towards the line of trees at the end of our property. Long ago, Jonathan had convinced our father to let us use an old rickety wooden chair that we had found in the basement as a makeshift swing, and now, it hung by coils of tattered rope from the thick branches of a huge yellow-leafed maple.  
In that instant, Jonathan patted the armrests and called me over. “Come on, I'll push you.”  
I halfheartedly hoisted my clumsy and tiny frame onto the hard and splintered chair. As Jonathan began to push me in a steady rhythm against the nonexistent breeze, he said, “Maybe we could ask Papa to let us build a tree-house.”  
“He'll never let us,” I said immediately.  
That didn't deter Jonathan, though. He continued rambling his plans for a playhouse, while occasionally glancing up at the baby-blue sky above with a thoughtful expression on his young face.  
He pondered out loud, “If it's not that big, like fort, then he might say yes. Maybe we could even help us.”  
Beside him, I rolled my eyes. The thought of our father suddenly feeling the urge to be a “fun dad” and appearing outside with planks of wood and blankets and offering to help us build a play-house sounded ludicrous, even then.  
So I merely laughed at my brother's ridiculous optimism and said, “Good luck with that, when pigs fly!”  
And Jonathan, not taking too kindly to my lighthearted sarcasm, shoved against the swing a little too hard, causing it to rock and spin as I squealed and struggled to steady it.  
“Jerk!” I snapped in my overly high-pitched little-girl voice, not quite achieving the level of spite that I was secretly aiming for.  
I was about to yell at him some more, when a low and eerie growl reverberated from the woods nearby.  
Jonathan and I both turned to see a thin and mangy-looking dog emerge from the space between the birch trees at the end of our property. The creature's fur was gray, or perhaps brown. It was hard to tell from where we were standing, and also due to how dirty it looked. The dog slowly revealed itself more, taking a few hesitant steps towards our front lawn, but never breaking eye contact and never ceasing to growl at us.  
For some reason, all I could think to say was, “Do you think it's from the neighbor's up the road?”  
I remember how my voice shook.  
“Just stay still,” my brother murmured beside me. “If we don't move, it'll get bored and leave.”  
My lips barely moved as I asked under my breath, “How are you so sure?” And it occurred to me that my brother wasn't sure at all. He just wanted to appear sure, appear to be the knowledgeable big brother who was always fearless, too. In that moment, he was just as scared as I was. Still, though, Jonathan's plan to remain immobile until the creepy dog left might have worked if a bird didn't decide to leave its perch on a nearby branch, snapping a twig as it launch into the sky, flapping its wings loudly in the late summer air. This unexpected sound caused the dog to launch into a sprint towards Jonathan and I.   
My heart leaped into my throat as my eyes zeroed in on that wild and unruly beast bounding towards us.  
“Jonathan!” I squeaked, jumping back a couple of feet, but to my astonishment, my brother didn't follow suit or even look as terrified. No, instead; Jonathan suddenly picked up a fallen branch and proceeded to wave it at the dog as it got closer.  
“You idiot!” 8-yr old me almost screamed. “You can't scare it away with just that! We need to get inside the house now!”  
Perhaps out of fear, my words got all jumbled up in my mind and all I could sputter out was my brother's name. Even so, Jonathan charged towards the dog with that stupid stick raised above his head and before I could turn around and run for the house, he struck the animal on its spine, hard enough to make it yelp loudly. I looked over my shoulder to see the dog lowering its head, still growling but now far less menacing. My brother, who wasn't that much taller than the dog itself, seemed to tower over it now. “Go! Get out!” Jonathan struck the dog again when it didn't move. Slowly, I could feel my heartbeat slow, but I remained where I stood. “Why doesn't the stupid dog just leave?” I wondered, noticing how my brother's skinny form trembled as he approached the dog again and struck it significantly harder, this time on its head. Strangely, it seemed like it was still considering whether to attack us or not, but it was also clear to me that as long as the dog remained in our yard, my brother wasn't going to back down. After a second or two, the dog finally turned and dashed off towards the trees. But my brother sprinted after it. For some reason, he didn't stop, not even when the dog was almost to the end of our yard, where the lining of the woods began. Jonathan just kept running after it, ignoring my cries for him to stop. I remember how his dark eyes looked crazed as he broke the stick that he was still holding in half and threw both pieces at the dog, effectively hitting the animal again, just before it disappeared, back into the forest. I was breathing heavily again by the time I reached Jonathan.   
“Papa..is going to kill us,” I panted, bracing my hands against my knees to steady my shaking legs. “We're not supposed to be so faraway.”  
But Jonathan acted as if he hadn't heard me. His dark ink-black gaze was still focused on the patch of woods where the dog had vanished through. His breathing was hitched, just like mine was.  
When he finally spoke, Jonathan's words were whispered, almost inaudibly. Still, I thought I heard him say, “I'll make sure that he never comes back here again.”  
But at this point, my stomach had started hurting and all I did was shake my head.  
“It won't come back, you already scared it. We have to get back home, before Papa notices-”  
“No,” Jonathan cut in, unexpectedly. His dark eyes were hollow as they fixed on the line of trees and the ditch that was visible at the far end of the woods. “You go back, Clary. I'm going to look for the dog.”  
I stared at him, utterly shocked. “Why?”  
“To make sure it doesn't come back,” Jonathan responded, taking a step towards the birch path where the dog had run down.  
“Are you crazy?” I began, but at that exact moment, we heard our father's unmistakable timbre echoing from our yard.  
“Jonathan! Clary! Where the hell are you?”  
I grabbed my brother's arm, impatiently pulling him in the direction of home. “Come on! We're already in so much trouble!”  
But even as he allowed me to drag him through the cluster of bare branches and prickly shrubs, back towards our yard, Jonathan's eyes never left the space in the woods where the dog had disappeared through. I didn't understand it then, why he was so determined to go search for the mangy mutt. I thought that the mere fact that neither of us had been bitten was more than good enough; why did we have to try to catch that stupid thing and what would we do with it, anyway? That was how my 8-year old brain tried to reason with my brother's odd behavior that day. I even suggested later that we tell Valentine, so that the three of us could go out and try to find out where the dog had come from, maybe warn its owners about it being a potentially volatile threat. However, all Jonathan did was shake his head and say, “No, you were right. We'll just get in more trouble. Papa is already angry, so let's not tell him, okay?” I remembering sighing in frustration, thinking that I would never ever understand my brother. He was just too strange and unpredictable, it was pointless to even try.

But for some insane reason, this is the memory that's the freshest in my mind; popping up, out of the blue like a giant red balloon against a clear summer sky. And I hold onto the image of my brother's coal-black eyes that day, remembering how they became hollow as he beat that dog and attempted to chase it further into the forest. I didn't know it then, but that was the first sign that something dark had started growing inside his brain; inside his heart, and started twisting his innocent nature into something unfathomably sinister.. I guess I can't help but feel like I should have known better, too, especially when I'm here; only 9 years later, staring at the tar-like blood sticking to my hands and wrists, trying to rub it clean, to dispel any and all traces of the dull and acrid stench of regret that it leaves behind.


End file.
